Balloon Pictures

Taking these pictures wasn't always the easiest task in the world, but I'm so glad we have this fun documentation of how much he changed and grew this first year.  

I think my favorite part is how you can see his baby hair gradually falling out until about four months old (who is that bald baby?!?), then you can see the progression of his new hair coming in and getting so long!  Also he didn't seem to change all that much physically in months 5-7 but I remember how much he change developmentally during that time... sitting up, crawling, learning tricks, etc.  

Here they all are again:

(I'm not sure why he looks so comically large in this last one.  Giant baby!)

Beckett's First Year in Video

Kolby put a video together for Beckett's birthday.  It's a compilation of some of our favorite videos of his first year of life.  I can't tell you how much this video means to me.  Hope you enjoy it too!

Beckett's First Year from Kolby on Vimeo.

Here's the link if it doesn't play above: https://vimeo.com/81231805.

Beckett's First Birthday

We had such a wonderful time celebrating our boy's very first birthday!  Him turning one was bittersweet for sure, but I tried to focus on the sweet part and what a wonderful first year of life he had!

We wanted to keep his party low key and really focus on enjoying the day with him.  We had just our immediate families over to our house for breakfast.  I had fun making a few decorations so the house would look festive but I didn't do much because it's not like Beckett knows what Pinterest is so the bar was set pretty low.  For food Kolby picked up some stuff from our neighborhood donut shop that he and Beckett take their Saturday morning dates to.  Nothing fancy, but perfect.  I figured who wouldn't want to walk in the door to a spread of chocolate-covered donuts with sprinkles and a pitcher of chocolate milk?!?  Sounded like heaven to me at least, and I was in charge :)

Beckett's first stuffed animal that he really locked on to early on was this little fox that I got at Ikea a few weeks before he was born.  Then somehow he ended up with a lot of fox-themed clothes, books, etc. and it just became his little motif.  So it seemed natural to throw him a fox party.  I know what you are all thinking, and no, it had nothing to do with that stupid song (Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!).  We dressed Beckett up as the cutest little fox there ever was, and we love the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox so we had that playing in the background.  We used Wheaton College colors (Kolby's Alma Mater) but that was really just a coincidence of orange from foxes and me wanting to reuse anything navy from the luncheon we had after Beckett's baptism.  I'm happy with how everything turned out and more so with how stress-free it all was!

Kolby and I made Beckett's cake together the night before while watching the movie I.Q.  It was a little date, and the cake turned out amazing if I do say so myself.  I baked and iced it, and Kolby was in charge of the fox.  He's a wonder with pumpkin carving so I figured it was a good job for him, and he totally nailed it.  Beckett double-fisted his slice so I'd say it was an overall success.

I wish I had more pictures from his party but I just enjoyed it instead.  Thankfully a few people snapped some and I'm so glad to have those.  So, here's a peek at Beckett's first birthday party!

We had invited his little friends over to play the next day (his actual birthday) but it was Icemaggedon and the roads were still iffy for some.  So we just went to church as a family and then took Beckett to the aquarium and let him point at things to his heart's content.

 Then we had his friends over to play the next weekend and they had a blast!

*** 

Happy first birthday, Beckett boy!  You are loved and cherished beyond measure.

Twelve Months Old

Beckett finished his first year of life with a bang!  It was a really fun month for us all.

Here’s a snippet of what’s been going on with our little guy these past few weeks.

If I had to sum this month up in a single word, it would be pointing.  We went through a waving phase a few months ago and now we have officially moved on to pointing.  Oh the pointing.  I don’t even remember how it got started but now all day every day he just goes around pointing at things, in a very “what’s that?” kind of way.  He doesn’t even want what he points at most of the time, he just points and looks at us and wants us to tell him what it is.  We name it, then he points at something else.  Over and over and over again. 

I think it’s just his way of experiencing the world right now.  Which I should be grateful for because I feel like he’s gradually transitioning away from experiencing it with his mouth (although I fished a very soggy dog food kernel out just yesterday…baby steps!).  But it can be annoying at times.  Light.  Light.  Light.  Fan.  Light.  Light.  Light.  Light.  Momma.  Light.  Light.  Still the light, buddy.  I try to be constructive with it sometimes in that if I point and name three different things (like three toys or three things sitting on a table) and repeat them several times, I can then ask him “where’s the X?” and he’s pretty darn good at pointing to the right one.  It’s so fun to see his little brain working!

Speaking of which, it’s become really clear lately that Beckett loves to learn.  It’s a little hard to put into words, but it’s just something that can be observed if you watch him.  To start, he’s such a curious little boy.  He loves to explore things, get into lots of trouble, and figure out how things work.  Because he loves learning we are trying to teach him some new things.  Sign language has been really useful for this.  He knows the signs for more, milk, and water, and he uses them without prompting when he wants any of those things.  It’s so neat!  He also knows and understands the signs for eat and diaper, but he only uses them we say them.  We also like teaching him gestures.  When we yell ‘snow day’ he throws his hands in the air (Kolby's had a few snow days lately).  When we say ‘sweet boy’ he clasps his hands together and brings them up by his cheek (this was so cute… but lately it’s evolved to this move that looks like he’s stirring a cauldron, ha!).  We’re also working on some dance moves :). 

He’s still all about the books.  Give that kid a pile of books and he will just sit there and flip through them all and jabber and point at things on the pages.  His favorite way to for us to read him books right now is for us to point at the respective pictures as we narrate the story, or for him to point at each thing on the page and us say what they are.  Pointing, pointing, pointing.

Kolby invented a new sport called dadcrobatics.  It’s where he essentially does basketball tricks but uses Beckett as the ball, feeding him around his waist, through his legs, over his shoulders, etc. while humming circus music.  He also does figure skating moves while holding Beckett, with the routine always ending with a big ta-da where they each hold an arm out.  Both activities send Beckett into fits of giggles.  Dads are so much fun.

For my memory’s sake, here’s Beckett’s routine these days:

6am                 wake up, nurse, play, breakfast

8:30/9am         nap (usually 1-2 hours)

10:30am          play, run errands, play with friends

Noonish           lunch

1pm                 nurse, nap (usually around an hour)

3pm                 play, run errands

5pm                 Kolby gets home, we hang out for a while then tag team Beckett and cooking dinner

6:30pm            family dinner

7pm                 bath, nurse, bedtime (he’s usually asleep around 8)

What we did this month:

-I took Beckett to his first movie—Despicable Me2—at the dollar theatre. And thank goodness it only cost a $1 because I spent the majority of the movie sitting in the aisle playing with him and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep him from eating popcorn off the floor. We went with some friends and it was still a fun experience though!

-We joined my family at Cowboy’s Stadium to watch Baylor whip up Texas Tech. Beckett had a great time!

-We moved Beckett to a big boy car seat (still rear-facing, but he had gotten too big for his infant carrier seat).

-Beckett and I took a quick road trip to Houston with my cousin and her son to visit our other cousin and her new baby girl.

-Celebrated Thanksgiving with my family at the ranch

Things Beckett loves:

-POINTING

-Pushing big toys/walkers while walking behind them

-Reading books

-Playing on his own a little bit

-Eggs, banana, all types of meat

-Watching construction equipment 

Things I love about Beckett:

-how his hair is starting to curl a little bit

-he has this "stinker face" as we call it where he scrunches his nose up and gives a fake smile

-when he brings me a book to read to him

-he's starting to dance a little and it's adorable

Finally, this is about as good of time as any to jot down his stats throughout the year as well as when he hit some big milestones.

Stats

Age               Weight            Height             Percentiles (weight/height)

Birth                9lbs                21 inches          90/90

1 month         9lbs 7oz          22 inches          25/50

3 months       11lbs 14oz       23 inches          50/50

4 months       14lbs 2oz         26.5 inches       25/90

6 months       15lbs 10oz       28 inches          20/95

9 months       19lbs 3oz         29 inches          45/75

1 year             21lbs 1oz        30 inches          45/55

Basically he started out big and now he's right at average.

Milestones

First smile—6 weeks old

First laugh—3 months old

Lost the last of his newborn hair—4 months old

Started sitting up independently—5 months old

Started sleeping through the night—just shy of 6 months old (switched him to his tummy at 5½ months)

First solid food—6 months old (avocado, then peas, then hard-boiled egg yolk)

Started rolling over—6 months old (his very first rolling over was more like 4 months, but he didn’t keep it up)

First party trick (his tomahawk move)—7 months old

Started crawling—7 months old (almost 8)

First tooth—8 months old

Clapping on command—8 months old

Started pulling up to stand (including in his crib)—8 months old (almost 9)

Waving on command, doing motions to Patty Cake—9 months old

First word—this is a tough one to pinpoint… there was never a “oh my gosh he just said his first word” moment. He started making the dadada sound clearly at around 9 months, followed by mamama, and by 11 months it had transitioned more to “dada” and “mama” and he started to really associate it with us.

Photo Shoot

Just want to share some pictures from am impromptu photo shoot on a beautiful fall day last week.  We were at a park with Kassidy & Derek, near their new house.  Beckett had just turned 11 months old.  

I love how these pictures capture all the looks we see every single day!

Eleven Months Old

We got a coupon from Toys R Us in the mail in mid-October.  It said, “Somebody Special is Turning One!”  I about died.  There’s no way my teeny tiny little baby is that old, right?!?  Yet here we are at eleven months, his first birthday just right around the corner.  I will be a mess.  I repeat:  I will be a mess.  Consider yourselves warned.

So, eleven months…

He’s still all about the books.  One of his favorite activities is pulling up on the bookshelf in his room and grabbing out all the books he can reach, then sitting in a pile of them on the floor and “reading” most of them.  He almost always reads them right-side up and flips through page by page, really focusing on the drawings.  He LOVES books.

I also made him a little activity with a container of baby wipes filled with various jar lids, and he’ll play independently with that for a while.  I’ll dump them all out and he enjoys putting them back in through the slot at the top.

Those are really the only two independent activities that hold his attention.  The rest of his play time at home is spent playing for a few seconds at a time with some of his other toys and then crawling like a maniac through the house looking for trouble.  He loves the bathroom, either unrolling toilet paper or lifting the toilet lid and reaching his hands in.  He also likes emptying the kitchen cabinets, pulling up on the trash can and trying to eat the part of the trash bag sticking out the top, and pulling on any cords he can find.  What can I say, the kid loves to test his boundaries.  This is totally fine by me because it’s a product of his outgoing and inquisitive nature, which I love that he has.  He sure keeps us on our toes, though!

One big change this month is how often I have to fish things out of his mouth.  His pincer grip and hand coordination improved a lot, which is great for feeding himself but also means he’s able to put anything small in his mouth in an instant.  His favorite is dog food, which is a bummer because Maya loves to drop small mouthfuls of food throughout the house and then come back and eat them later.  Pretty much anytime I see that he has his lips closed it’s a guarantee he has at least one dog food kernel stored in his cheek (gross).  The other day he played outside with Kolby, then he took a nap, then I nursed him, THEN I found a leaf in his mouth.  It had to have been in there for hours  Silly kid.

He also loves to pick things up off the ground (like a clump of mud, a crumb, an acorn, etc.) and hand them to whoever is nearby.  He’s tireless with this.  We don’t spend a lot of time in the yard because all he does is hand grass to us over and over again.  But it’s nice when he inevitably grabs something he isn’t supposed to have (like a phone or remote) because we can just ask for it and he’ll hand it right over. 

He finally figured out how to crawl with something in his hand.  It’s funny to watch his thought process as he tries to figure out how he can get from point A to point B and take whatever he has with him.

Also, he’s learned to give kisses!  He kisses with his mouth wide open and tongue out.  It’s pretty much the most adorable thing ever.  And totally gross if you aren’t his parents, and sometimes even if you are.  It’s funny because with all the other things we’ve taught him, he mimics exactly what we do.  Yet with kissing, we close our lips tight and make an exaggerated pucker but his version is the exact opposite.  It’s still really cute though!  He's also starting to learn how to give hugs.

He's also developed a fake laugh.  If we tickle him or act silly he'll give a real laugh, but then sometimes he'll just decide that he wants to laugh on his own and he scrunches his nose up (like the picture above) and makes a weird laugh sounds that sounds more like a cough.  It's pretty funny.

He sleeps from about 7:45pm to 6am straight.  It is glorious.  He takes two naps a day, usually 45 minutes to 2 hours long with no real pattern as to why some are short and some are long.  He's still not falling asleep on his own for naps, but like I said before, he’s so perfect other than that we just aren’t choosing to fight that battle at this point.  I could make the excuse that his personality is so high energy it’s just harder for him to wind down in the middle of the day for a nap, but really it’s just Kolby and I just giving him what he wants.  He loves when we cradle him and hold him tight, and he loves to hold onto our shirt and look at us and make sweet sounds as he settles in.  He loves bouncing to the rhythm of “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” and the sound of the songs Kolby and I have each made up for him.  That’s what he wants at nap time, and he won’t want that forever.  So we choose to just give it to him because he’s just a baby and we want to, and we’re fine with whatever consequences that creates.  And I’ll just need to remind myself of this stance in five years when I’m holding a first grader across my arms while bouncing on our fourth exercise ball (we’re already on #2 because we wore the first one out… seriously) and thinking, “I think we may have made the wrong call here.”  :)

He’s started to have moments when he becomes a real momma’s boy.  Up to this point he has eagerly gone to anyone with a friendly face, which has been really nice and it makes my heart so happy to see other people enjoy holding him.  He’s a little more hesitant now, where he’ll still go willingly but if I stick around he wants to come back to me.  I’ve also noticed for the first time this month that he seems to crave the emotional aspect of nursing.  It seems like because he’s hit this very mobile and exploratory stage in life and is go-go-go into new things, he sometimes needs to come back to me and nurse and rest and reconnect.  Then he’s off again!

We had our first sick visit to the doctor this month, for pink eye.  Thankfully it didn’t bother him one bit and cleared up within a few hours of the antibiotic eye drops.  Other than pink eye and the occasional congestion, he has not been sick whatsoever and we are so thankful for his good health!  Unfortunately he was generous enough to share his pink eye with me with no hesitation.  Kolby has it now too.  I'm a little worried that we will just pass it around to each other forever!

Things we did this month:

-I took Beckett to a pumpkin patch and he picked out his first pumpkin

-Went to the Perot museum with cousin Kyndall (and Kassidy & Derek!)

-Beckett got pink eye and shared it with all of us

-Kolby started taking Beckett on Saturday adventures. It's their special one-on-one time and sometimes they go to the donut shop for breakfast, or to the park for a food-truck lunch, etc.

-took Beckett trick-or-treating for the first time; he went as King Kong climbing the Empire State Building (Kolby)

-traveled to Waco to celebrate Baylor Homecoming with whole my family

-celebrated our church's 4th birthday, where Beckett experienced his first bounce house slide and LOVED it

Things Beckett loves:

-the kitchen trash can

-my mom was reading him Goodnight Moon and when she touched the fireplace in the book she'd pretend it burned her finger; it quickly became Beckett's favorite game to grab our finger and force us to touch the fireplace in that book and watch us react

-pulling his socks off

-learning new things

-yelling into cups to hear his voice echo

Things I love about Beckett:  

-how great of a poker face he has when he has something in his mouth

-I love nursing him now more than ever

-when he scrunches his nose up and tries to make himself laugh

-his hair is starting to get long!

-his kisses and hugs XOXOXO

 

Some outtakes:

Halloween

We had a fun first Halloween with Beckett!

He went as King Kong, climbing the Empire State Building.  I found a gorilla costume online for $8 then I made Kolby's costume in about 10 minutes by assembling some boxes and spray painting them, then slapping on some electrical tape windows.  It was cheap and easy, and it was a hit!

We had dinner at my cousins Chris & Ashley's house down the street and Trick-or-Treated with them and our friends Mike & Amy for about 20 minutes.  We all have babies under a year old, and that was about their limit.  But it was still fun!

When we got home we put Beckett to bed and promptly ate all his candy.  So I'd say a great night was had by all!

Baylor Homecoming

Celebrating Baylor Homecoming has become a new tradition for my whole family now that my parents live in Waco, and that we have six Baylor alumni in my immediate family alone.  We had a great time this year--great fall weather, a fun parade, good food, seeing old friends, and of course watching the football team whoop up on Iowa State.

Watching the parade with Grams and Grandpops:

These boys are so stinkin' cute together.  But they are at difficult ages for a picture!

 

 Enjoying his first football game!

Chilling out with Russell and his girlfriend, Megan:

Love, love, love my big Baylor family!

Last Rangers Game

In late September we went as a family to one last Rangers game before the season ended.  I think Beckett went to eight games this year, including opening day.  He's a Rangers fan already!

It makes me so happy that Kolby finally has his little buddy at the ballpark.  This year was a great start to what I know will be many seasons of fun for these two!